Greece faces crisis over state TV closure

Athens: Greece is facing a new political crisis after the government was hit with a storm of public protest and a looming general strike over its shock decision to shut down state broadcaster ERT.

The socialist and moderate leftist parties supporting the coalition government were to hold an emergency meeting to decide their response as Prime Minister Antonis Samaras refused to back down.

"We are eliminating a hotbed of opacity and waste," Mr Samaras said at a European Investment Bank event in Athens. "We are protecting the public interest."

The broadcaster's television and radio stations were abruptly pulled off air late on Tuesday and its nearly 2700 staff suspended as part of the conservative-led coalition government's deeply unpopular austerity drive.

People arrive to support staff occupying the headquarters of the Greek public broadcaster ERT following the announcement of corporations closure on June 12, 2013 in Athens, Photo: Getty

"The ERT lockup amounts to a coup d'etat," leading union GSEE said in a statement. It announced a 24-hour general strike on Thursday, the third in the crisis-hit country this year.

There was also a protest by journalists in neighbouring Cyprus, where there are fears that budget-straining broadcaster RIK could go the same way as the government looks to slash spending in the island's own austerity drive.

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The Samaras administration quickly presented legislation creating a new broadcaster called New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television (NERIT) to replace the 60-year-old ERT.

"You can't fix a car while it is running, you have to take it off the road," government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou told journalists.

"It is a temporary postponement ... Everything will pass by parliament, I assure you it's all legal," he said, promising a "restart" during the summer.

But the sudden shutdown of ERT caused uproar, with journalists kicking off a 24-hour strike on Wednesday while defiant staff staged sit-ins at the organisation's offices in Athens and Greece's second-largest city Thessaloniki.

Riot police were stationed outside ERT offices around the country to prevent "any destruction", said Kedikoglou, himself a former journalist at the organisation.

The government has imposed sweeping public cutbacks demanded by the debt-laden country's international lenders in return for a massive bailout.

"The ERT lockup amounts to a coup d'etat," leading union GSEE said in a statement.

However, the spokesman insisted ERT's closure was not part of Greece's bailout obligations.